


pour a little light on me

by closingdoors



Series: Pepperony Week 2018 [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Arc Reactor Issues, Domestic Bliss, F/M, Pepperony Week, Pepperony week 2018, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 04:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15574035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: "I built you a farm."or, prompt one: domesticity





	pour a little light on me

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song 'Constellate' by Fleurie. This fic takes place after Avengers: Age of Ultron.
> 
> Also - none of the fics in this series will be linked, due to the nature of the prompts. 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

“I built you a farm.”

Pepper stares.

"Barton has one. Hides away with his wife and kids. Retirement.”

Pepper continues to stare.

“It’s stupid. I can’t retire. I know you can’t. Won’t. And we don’t have kids. But… I built you a farm.”

Tony scuffs his shoe against the ground.

Pepper rises and closes her arms around him.

So many years ago, he was afraid of being swallowed completely by deep space. Now he allows himself to be consumed by Pepper and the warm confines of her embrace. It’s a safe place to fall.

 

 

*

 

 

From the porch, he can hear the clink of the spoon against the mug. He glances over his shoulder and through the window he can see her standing at the stove, pouring herself a mug of tea while she cooks soup. Hair long and wavy down her back, barefoot, wearing an old pair of shorts and his shirt.

The surge of love and pride in his chest has never been so strong.

And it doesn’t  _hurt_ now. His chest, warped with scars though it may be, is free of the electromagnet. There’s no low hum, no vibration in his bones, no obnoxious light piercing through the dark whenever he tried to sleep. His chest flips, and he doesn’t wonder  _has the magnet stopped working?_ His chest flips, and he knows it’s because of her, because he’s happy, because he’s safe and loved, and it’s the first time he’s ever really felt that way.

Pepper joins him out on the porch. She nudges a mug of coffee in his hands which he accepts happily. It’s spring, the world is still warming up this year, so the rain that’s falling around them brings cool air with it. It patters against the porch roof above them, soothing.

Pepper tucks herself into his side, roping an old afghan around their shoulders, her bowl of soup warm as it presses against his stomach. There’s things he could say, but instead he drinks his coffee and listens to her hum as she takes a sip of her soup. Without a word, she convinces him to have some too, and they share the bowl until it’s empty.

After, she sets his mug and her bowl on the floor, pushing gently with her feet so that the swing seat they’re on rocks slowly. She tucks her legs beneath her, tugging the blanket around them a little tighter, and rests her head on his shoulder.

He threads his fingers through hers, settling their joint hands in his lap, and watches the rain fall.

 

 

*

 

 

He thought she’d hate it. After all, Pepper had escaped a small farm town for the big city. He thought he’d dragged her back to the place she’d left.

When he watches her, though, she’s content. She hums to herself as she sits on the porch watching the sun rise. She dances, hips swaying side to side, as she does the dishes. They go on long walks through the grounds which she initiates, hand in hand the entire time.

He knows that it can’t last forever. The both of them have commitments waiting for them in California and New York. She has a company to run; he has a world to save. Still, she isn’t restless, and he begins wondering if maybe the both of them hadn’t been looking for a place to belong, but a person.

It’s a glimpse into a future he’s desperately fighting for.

He makes a vow to himself to survive.

 

 

*

 

 

One morning, she doesn’t wake until half past ten. The latest he’s ever known her to sleep in before is eight-thirty. He doesn’t bother her, though, and when she pads out of the bedroom, delightfully sleep-ruffled and only wearing a t-shirt and panites, he’s making them french toast.

“Smells good,” she comments, wrapping her arms around him from behind.

“You slept in late.”

“I did.”

Pepper presses a kiss to his hair.

“And you’re affectionate this morning.”

“I’m happy,” she confesses against his neck.

She unwraps from him. Tony plates their breakfast and settles in the seat beside her at the dining table.

Half of her hair is still tucked into her t-shirt collar. He reaches out and fixes it, letting his fingers drift against her neck as he untucks the hair.

“Pepper?”

She’s taking a sip of orange juice, watching him.

“Me too,” he tells her.

If he didn’t know her any better, he’d swear her eyes were shining with tears. He leans in and kisses her, the sweet sugary taste of the juice still on her lips, and he feels her smile.

 

 

 

*

 

 

“Pep?”

Sometimes it’s strange, on nights like these, where he finds himself staring up at the ceiling. He’s not recovered, not completely. The nightmares still exist, sleeping is still a struggle. But it’s not so loud anymore. And sometimes he doesn’t know how to deal with muted suffering.

Pepper snuffles in her sleep. He watches her eyes open and adjust to the dark.

“Mhm?”

She’s half-asleep still. He ropes an arm around her and tugs her to his side.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Pepper shakes her head against his chest.

“Tell me,” she murmurs.

“Do you ever miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“The arc reactor.”

There’s a pause. Then Pepper lifts her head from his chest. The sheets shift, revealing the bare skin of her shoulder, the freckled skin. That’d been one of the benefits of the arc reactor. Everything had been lit by it. He could always see her. No room to hide. Now, his eyes strain to see the detail obscured to him.

“Sometimes,” she admits softly. “It’s a matter of adjusting. I never knew your body with anything but the arc reactor. That was my normal.”

Her hand curls across the scars on his chest. He prefers not to look at them. The surgeons had done a good job, sure, but there’d been only so much they could fix after the butcher job the Ten Rings had done. Skin graft after skin graft to adjust to, and though they helped, the scars didn’t fade completely. He’s destined to be marked for the rest of his life for his sins, and he’ll spend every day trying to repay them.

“But this, Tony… you, healthy? That’s what matters to me.”

She dusts feather light kisses against the scars.

His breathing stutters.

In this house, there is no FRIDAY. No music. No traffic nearby. All that fills the room is the sound of his breathing and the press of her lips against his chest, over and over, until she lifts, and her lips meet his.

“Thank you,” he mumbles between kisses.

She curls her hand around the back of his neck and rests her forehead against his.

“Thank you for this house,” she returns.

“Can I convince you to take more than one week off?”

“You can try,” Pepper tells him, and he doesn’t need the arc reactor to know she’s smiling. The hand on his chest snakes down, makes his goosebumps stand on end. “You won’t win.”

“Worth a shot,” he quips, and pulls her down to him.

 

 

*

 

 

He learns how to do laundry.

It should be boring, but with her it isn’t. She stops him from shoving everything in the washer regardless of color, and he listens to everything she has to say. They sit side by side as they wait for the cycle to finish, watching their reflections in the drum. They take the laundry outside to hang on the washing line she’d bought for them three days in, because in all of his careful plans laundry most definitely hadn’t been a priority to consider, and it devolves into him whining that it could wait until they’re home and her lecturing him that he’s more than old enough to wash his own clothes.

Her hair flashes a vibrant red under the sun. He watches her as she hangs each item on autopilot, bantering with him the entire time, while he struggles to keep up.

The afternoon ends with a slice of sun escaping the clouds. They pull out a picnic blanket and sit in the yard. He watches the way she turns her head up to the sun, basking in the heat, while the laundry shifts gently in the breeze.

It’s not the life he’d pictured for himself. In fact, for a long time, he hadn’t really envisioned a life for himself at all. His parents had died, and it’d felt like a part of him had too.

He hadn’t expected to laugh while doing laundry. He hadn’t expected to want to retire to a farm. He hadn’t expected to be a one-woman kind of guy.

“What?”

Tony blinks. Pepper’s watching him, brows knit, and he realises he’s been caught staring.

“I love laundry.”

Pepper laughs, tipping her head back, and red flares bright in the sunlight again.

“Sure.”

“I do,” he insists. “Y’know what? Let’s just stay here and do laundry for the rest of our lives.”

“What an offer,” she replies dryly.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she replies, and this time she’s softer.

She’s a beautiful surprise, he thinks. She’d snuck up on him after a decade. Quietly. He’s never been so grateful to know her. He feels it everywhere, love for her, and maybe it’s too much to hope for a future where they have this and not suits of armour, but he hopes for it anyway.

“I didn’t think I was a farm boy before this.”

“You’re not,” she says with a chuckle. She links her hand with his. “But you’ll do.”


End file.
